What is a replacement chicken? Blue Seal Home Fresh Grow & Show

[clrdogrl]

I told DH to stop by the store and pick up some more chick grower/finisher for my pullets. He came home with a bag I've never seen before. It's Blue Seal Home Fresh Grow & Show. The details are: Home Fresh® Grow & show is a complete, balanced 15%
protein diet designed for growing replacement chickens. It is also ideal for growing, showing, or maintaining pet ducks, geese, and other game birds. Formulated for uniform growth and conformation of show birds.

What is a replacement chicken? Is that a meat bird?

I usually buy the starter/grower that has 22% protein and this Grow & Show only has 15%. Is this not supposed to be given to my pullets who are meant to be my egg layers? Should I return this and buy something else? Please help!

 

[redstar14]

I think its a back up layer

 

[keesmom]

It will be fine to feed to your pullets if you don't want the hassle of exchanging the bag. I was also mistakenly given a bag of Grow & Show instead of the Multi Flock Starter/Grower I had ordered. I would have preferred the higher protein, but it wasn't worth the gas/time/hassle of exchanging feed bags for me.

 

[Fred's Hens]

It is what is generally known as a Grower. It would be just fine for birds 12-17 weeks. The term "replacement" means being fed to pullets that will be replacing older hens destined to be removed at the end of they laying cycle.

If your chicks are under 10 weeks of age, I'd feed them the Starter one more bag.

 

[clrdogrl]

Thank you! I was quite confused when a google search for "replacement chicken" yielded no results. I have been purchasing the starter/grower for my whole flock (10 weeks to adult layers) and offering the oyster shell on the side for the adult girls for more calcium. I just got confused with the whole "replacement chicken" wording thinking it was a finisher for meat birds or something.

Maybe I'll give them some extra protein rich snacks while they're on this bag and then make sure I do all the feed shopping in the future.

 

[Fred's Hens]

In our experience, there is a place for the Grower in the feeding cycle of commercial type laying hens. Most of the Leghorns, Leghorn crosses, Tetra tints, Red Sex Links, etc are top laying, early laying birds. Although purchased through retail hatcheries and feedstores, these top layers are the birds used in the egg industry. Back Yard folks tend to also like their lay early, lay big and lay almost daily tendencies.

Feeding them a month of Grower, lower protein feed, say from weeks 12 through week 18, helps ease them into maturity. These hybrids mature so quickly that slowly them down just a wee bit is recommended. This allows their organs and especially the skeletal structures to muscle up before starting to crank out 6 and 7 eggs per week, as these top layers do.

The "guide" for the ISA Brown, for example, recommends feeding a Grower for precisely this reason. Give the birds a chance to fill out and be strong before firing up the egg machine.

The word "replacement birds" is understood by those who replace their layers with what is called the "all in, all out" method. Every 14-18 months, all the present layers are moved out and replaced by point of lay, young pullets.